​First her spoon ring, then her favorite spoon, probably intended for sugar, but which served instead as a perfect shovel for ice cream. Next the little hollow which shone from her garden, almost as if a piece of sky was buried next to her dahlias every time it rained. Fleeting April thunderstorms now left nothing in her flowerbed but mud. The next loss was her own fault. The shallow china cup, which bloomed with Scandinavian rosettes, shallow enough to cool her tea to the perfect temperature while she still felt like sipping, slipped out of her fingers just as she was lowering it next to her kettle. The uncaring granite gleamed as she swept her hand across its surface, dropping the pretty pieces into the trash. The hill across the way was not as round, filled out with newly returned leaves. Worst of all, her son had the hail damage on her car smoothed as a surprise for her birthday. He’d offered to get its oil changed, not to alter its character. Her smile was a slash. How flat life felt.

SARAH ANN WINN’s poems, prose, and hybrid works have appeared or are upcoming in Five Points, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Massachussetts Review, Passages North, and Quarterley West, among others. Her chapbooks include Field Guide to Alma Avenue and Frew Drive (forthcoming Essay Press, 2016), Haunting in the Last House on Holland Island (Porkbelly Press, 2016), and Portage (Sundress Publications, 2015). She holds an Master of Fine Arts from George Mason University and a Master of Library Science from Catholic University of America. Visit her at bluebirdwords.com or follow her @blueaisling